Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[Ben]

Climate change could mean the extinction of our species...

[Ben]

[Ben]

[Ben]

American author Chris Hedges has a pretty bleak take on climate change or climate chaos (as Naomi Klein has dubbed it):

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/...ters_20100719/

[Cuchulain]

I remember a Rolling Stone interview from a few years ago with the rather remarkable James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Theory. He thinks we're pretty much fucked at this point, no matter what we do. He envisions a not too distant future when a small remnant of humanity will be living in the far north, fighting over the scraps of civilization.

Rolling Stone seems to have purged the article. All I can find is this
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/com/Logan/...e_10-17-07.htm
Only the first page is viewable.

Here's a link to Lovelock's site
http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/

Is he right? Damned if I know, but it's a disturbing thought. It will be a sad thing indeed if all the squabbling money grubbers allow us to slide into Armageddon without even trying to prevent it.

[hippifried]

Extinction of our species?

This is why people don't listen to the arguments, whether their legitimate or not.

[south ov da border]

We'll see what happens. I don't know how long this would take. Hopefully it won't happen for a long time...

[loveburst]

.,,..........................

[loveburst]

..since it seems to be happening on all the other planets in this solar system too, I might suggest there is a natural cycle going on, that will not extinct all humans.

Also, since it seems to be, and is, related to the number of sunspots - which at this moment is and has been in the overall, larger than ever in human history within 8000 years - that suggests the climate change being related into a natural cycle even moreso.

What can be seen as good though, in this "end of the world" hype now seen in the mass media, and the suggestion that all this happening due to human activity (ignoring totally what is going on in our solarsystem) - is that it can awaken a natural and logical understanding in some people, about the fact that the current socioeconomical system is both sick, and destroying the beauty we call life..

[trish]

What's happening on all other planets in the solar system? Global warming? On Jupiter? Saturn? Pluto? Oh you mean the inner planets. The climate of Mars is interesting but completely different from ours. It undergoes cycles of dust storms that drift across the face of the planet, plotting out the Sun and freezing the planet. Moreover, if you want to send the message th[at] climate change does not necessarily mean extinction, I wouldn't call too much attention to the example of Mars. And yes, Venus has a hot climate driven by it proximity to the Sun (not just it's proximity to solar radiation but the Sun's tidal influences on the Venusian interior.

Given that we are nearing the peak of a sunspot cycle, the activity has been disappointing to astrophysicists who say it's at an all time low.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

We know what's driving the current climate change on planet Earth and it's not Sunspots, it's the activity of roughly 6.5 billion human beings and their energy consuming industries. If almost all the oxygen found in the atmosphere today was put there by green plants, why is it so hard to believe that humans too, in such abundance, can have a global effect on the atmosphere?

Does climate change mean extinction? There's a lot of lesser difficulties we'll have to deal with first. The loss of arable lands. Migration of crops and vegetation. Loss of crops and vegetation. Rising oceans and changing coastlines. Evaporation of fresh water sources. Patterns of violent weather events. Displaced populations and the resultant political upheavals. Extinction is not an immediate worry.